A Word About "Chick Flicks"

     If you're like me, and you're a movie buff, chances are you hate chick flicks. Not because they're about women (although I suspect this might be a reason why many movie critics don't like them), but because they're bad. They often have dull or cliched plots, they are so emotional as to be cheesy, and the entire premise of the movie is a bit superficial and doesn't probe the audience to think deeper about an issue. But chick flicks are treated unfairly.
     When's the last time you heard someone--critic or moviegoer--bash a "guy movie?" I'm talking about movies like "Napoleon Dynamite" and "The Terminator." Neither of these movies, in my opinion, had much substance. They were both mindless flicks offering either stupid humor or eye-catching action scenes. Nobody said anything negative about these two films--at least when compared to chick flicks like "27 Dresses" and "P.S. I Love You." In fact, on the popular film review website RottenTomatoes, "The Terminator" got a whopping 100 percent! This rarely happens on RottenTomatoes! A perfect score is usually saved for classic movies like Dr. Strangelove or Schindler's List. You know, movies that were actually good.
     In my media class, we're constantly discussing how the media portrays certain groups of people. Along with the portrayal of groups comes the perception of groups--usually also generated by the media. Because of film critics, we're taught that "guy movies" are "good" and "chick flicks" are "bad." If you were to read many of the film reviews on RottenTomatoes, you would find that female critics themselves often bash "chick flicks" and praise "guy movies." Why does this happen? Is it because women are led to believe that their experiences are somehow less valuable? Or is it just that men are more successful at getting attention (i.e. praise for movies like "The Terminator") that they don't deserve?
     Either way, it's time to come to a conclusion about bad movies: they need to be condemned for their material, and not for which gender they attract.